WASHINGTON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 03rd December, 2019) The US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit has declined the Justice Department's appeal to resume executions of Federal prisoners in the United States, according to an order issued on Monday.
"Upon consideration of the motion to stay or vacate preliminary injunction, the opposition thereto, and the reply, it is ORDERED that the motion be denied. Appellants have not satisfied the stringent requirements for a stay pending appeal. See Nken v. Holder, 556 U.S. 418, 434 (2009); D.C. Circuit Handbook of Practice and Internal Procedures 33 (2018)," the document said.
The latest denial follows a US federal judge ruling in November to temporarily halt plans to carry out the first executions of federal prisoners in the United States in nearly two decades.
US Attorney General William Barr announced in July that the United States would resume carrying out federal executions for the first time in 16 years and said that five death sentences would be carried out beginning on December 9.
Though several individual US states regularly carry out the death penalty, the US federal government has not executed a prisoner since 2003.
Prior to the temporary injunction, the federal government had scheduled five executions for December and January for inmates Daniel Lee, Lezmond Mitchell, Wesley Purkey, Alfred Bourgeois and Dustin Honken. Purkey was not among the four prisoners who petitioned the court for the injunction.
